Wednesday, April 30, 2014

[For full chapter, click here
Yet another chiastic closing to the story of Egypt. With the taking up of the body of Joseph, we return to his primal blessing of "the sky above, and deeps lurking below." Now the waters used to drown the Israelite babies turn around to drown who had thrown them in.
This is a chiastic return to the opening plague of blood. Once again, there is a demand to "stand" (va-yityazev); once again, Moses lifts his arm. The bloody lintel posts become the walls of water through which Israel must pass, in a continuation of the birth imagery of the previous 2 chapters.
We return as well to the initial fear of the price of freedom: "This is what we said to you in Egypt! Leave us alone, and we will work for Egypt, for it is better to work for Egypt than die in the wilderness," and Moses' contention "They will not have faith in me."
Now, after Israel passes through the breaking waters, they "have faith in God, and in Moses, his servant. The first stage of the Exodus is complete.]

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

[For full chapter, click here
"For with a strong hand, God has taken you out of Egypt"--this refrain is repeated four times, echoing the many references to hands since the dedication of Moses. We must know that there was an expression of power, power dedicated to "taking you out of Egypt"; that this was battle that had to be fought, and that created an indelible connection. This strong hand will be carried "as a sign on your hand" throughout generations, and indicates God's faithful keeping of his promises to the patriarchs.
In the aftermath of the plague of the firstborn, Moses gives over God's message to the children of Israel. The Israelite firstborn, human to animal, are paralleled to the Egyptian. The slaying of the firstborn dedicated the Israelite firstborn to God at the same moment, in a single action. All are taken--the question is the form of the taking.
This introduces the idea of pidyon, redemption: the ability to stand in the place of something else, to transfer. An impure animal's firstborn can be redeemed, replaced with an animal fit for the altar. The freeing of Israel is not by fiat, but by redemption. Being freed from "the house of slavery (beit avadim)" demands "this is the service (avoda) you must do," an exchange, not a loosening.
Other parallels to the plagues on Egypt: the Israelite's must clear leavened bread "from their borders" (gevulha), a dedication that echoes the repeated attacks on Egypt's "borders"; they must make the Exodus a "sign" on their hand, an echo of the many "signs" God put before Pharaoh; they must learn what to "see" and not to "see" must dedicate their eyes--in parallel to the signs done "before the eyes of Pharaoh."
It is both a redemption, and taking an active role. They, like Moses and Aaron, become communicators, dedicating their "mouth".
Still a focus on "leaving" and "coming" and the liminal spaces within. Memories are placed "between the eyes"; those who are dedicated are those who "open the womb" (peter reham) a return to the focus on motherhood that opened the book. This is a birth, and the womb has opened. The firstborn represent the first steps to nationhood, and opening to communicate "when your son asks."
The chapter closes with the Israelites proving that they too can be faithful to their oaths. Joseph is at last "taken up" from Egypt, indicating that redemption has truly come. There can be reparation, a "pidyon" of evil]

[For full chapter, click here
A chapter of new beginnings--"This month for you shall be head of all months, first of the months of the year." With new beginning, a change of tone. We have entered the realm of history rather than intimate personal stories. God now speaks to the collective, the "entire congregation of Israel" (kol adat yisrael). In place of declaration and discussion, detailed instructions of what should be done and not done, in order to preserve memory and identity "for generations."
Yet also a culmination and accentuation of the gradually escalating plagues. Pharaoh's plea "only remove this death from me!" now becomes literal death. The emphasis of "coming" (bo) and "leaving" (vayetaze) becomes here a focus on the actual doorway, the space between inside and outside. We are at the liminal transition, literally in the doorway, between past and future; night and day; slavery and nationhood.
Now Israel takes responsibility for their own redemption. It is they--rather than God--who make the "sign", they who cause a separation, they who make their own version of the first plague, painting the doorway in the "blood" that has run through the narrative since the opening of Exodus.
Yet we also have the introduction of a new keyword: "guard" (hi-shamer, mishmeret). At this moment of change, a need to guard and preserve what matters; time and memory need to be held close....]

[For full chapter, click here
An interlude. A strange, abrupt chapter, in which nothing actually happens. Rather it serves as a bookend, closing Moses' protracted interaction with Pharaoh, in preparation for the final blow (to be be delivered by God Himself). There is a chiastic closing to the story of Moses' mission. If God appointed Moses in response to Israel's "scream," now, at this final plague, Egypt will "scream." In this final warning, we return to Moses initial declaration to Pharaoh: "My firstborn son, Israel. I say to you, send forth My son that he may serve Me, and if you refuse to let him go, I will kill your firstborn son."
What stands out here, in this final confrontation before the "complete" (11:1) severance, is a strange intimacy between Israel and Egypt, the oppressors and the oppressed. Moses and Pharaoh fight each other in an exchange that--in contrast to their earlier, formal, conversations--is personal, with Moses storming out. God says: "he will send you out complete (kalla)" which can also mean "bride"--a connotation that is reenforced by the language garesh ye-garesh: "he will divorce you." Moses, we now learn, "is great in the land of Egypt, in the eyes of Pharaoh's servants and in the eyes of the people." Israel finds "favor" in the eyes of Egypt, in an echo of the earlier intimacy between Joseph and Pharaoh. Suddenly, the children of Israel can ask of their Egyptian "friends" for silver and gold. Friendship and favor enter a relationship that seemed to consist only of blood, murder and slavery.
At this final parting of ways, the full divorce that will "separate the children of Israel", there is a bittersweet awareness of how intertwined the two nations are]

[For full chapter, click here
the implicit attack on Pharaoh's will and identity becomes explicit. "For I have strengthened his heart" says God, undermining Pharaoh's act of willful denial. We have entered the realm of narrative--"So that you will tell your sons and sons sons how I plotted (hitolalti--lit. made happen) with Egypt"--and God is the plot master, Pharaoh his character. The leitwords are "Come" and "go"--a veritable screenplay, with entrances and exits.
The plagues continue, yet gain force. We return to the swarms that opened the series (the frogs and lice), once again battering the very "boundaries" (gevulha) of Egypt. Once again, the Egyptian fears of the "rising" (va-yaal) hoards of Israelites is given concrete form in the rising swarms of locus. But now the locus "cover" the very "eye of the earth". From being a "see-er", with the plagues done before his eyes, Pharaoh becomes something to be seen: "to show (le-harot) My greatness." The locus are a living death: "Only remove this death from me."
We also move closer to the inner circle. God spoke to Moses, who spoke to Aaron, who spoke to Pharaoh. Now Moses raises his hand instead of Aaron, causing the plague.
We move from tangible plagues to the intangible, and the insidious attack is the more frightening. Pharaoh will indeed "know" that there is a God that he did not know, attacking the senses directly. The hail was characterized by beating, unbearable noise. Only when the "voices" stopped, did Pharaoh rediscover his will. The locus brought darkness as they covered the land. Now the darkness itself becomes "tangible (va-yimash)". The pressure on the senses, the attack on the self, without intermediary]

Sunday, April 20, 2014

[For full chapter, click here
If the earlier plagues attacked the underlying justifications for the crimes against the children of Israel, these middle plagues seem intended to attack Egypt's very sense of identity, "as had not been seen since Egypt became a nation."
The leitworts are "stand" "heart" and "send."
"Go strand before Pharaoh," Moses and Aaron are told, and Pharaoh must watch as the very sky rains down curses. If before the water and earth turned against him, now the sky does as well, followed by fire--all four elements.
The plagues move from the outside in. The Egyptians' bodies are struck, so they can no longer "stand." Invisible, insidious death strikes their animals. Next, God promises to "send (shalakh) all my plagues on your heart," attacking your very sense of self and will. You will "know," God says, that "I have only allowed you to stand to show My power." In reality, you have nothing. This is not a battle, but a play in which you are acting a part of My choosing. And the demonstration: the Egyptians for once are given a chance to escape the devastation of the plague, by "giving heart" to God's warning. Those who do not "give heart" leave their "servants and cattle in the field" to be destroyed. Their very will is what destroys them.
In the wake of this thundering attack, Pharaoh gives way, and promises to "send (e-shkakh)" away the children of Israel, so they will no longer "stand" in place.
But once the pressure of the incessant noise ceases, Pharaoh "hardens his heart" and his hear becomes reflexively "strengthened." This final act o of will is also the final devastation, as Pharaoh simply fulfills "God's words in the hand of Moses."]

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

[For full chapter, click here
Consequence continues to become incarnate, as the basis of slavery is exposed, and given literal form. The stinking Nile now swarms the very hoards the Egyptians feared. If the "children of Israel" were described as "swarming (ve-yishretzu) and increased abundantly," frogs and lice now truly swarm (ve-yishretuzu) the earth. Pharaoh's fear that Israel would "rise" (va-yaalu) and threaten the integrity of his boarders now takes literal form, as the frogs "rise" and spread throughout "your borders." This is no exodus, but rather an invasion of every inner space.

The "stench" of the children of Israel ("You have made us stink before Pharaoh, to give him a sword to destroy us"), becomes the "stench" of the dead Nile, which now spreads to the entire earth (va-tivash ha-aretz--"the earth rotted"). And the rotting earth also swarms, the very dust turning to lice.Self and non-self are mixed as the arov, the "mixed multitude," invades the Egyptian "homes."

Pharaoh's original desire to separate Israel as an alien element, now becomes reversed, as God "sets apart the land of Goshen" for protection: "I will put a division between your people and my people," not for slavery, but for care.]

[For full chapter, click here
Transformations and marks, as reality becomes permeable, changeable.
Moses will be a 'god/power' to Pharaoh, Aaron will be his prophet, in this multi-layered world where God taken on multiple names. A chain of speech, from God, to Moses, to Aaron.
The staff "changes" things from one thing to another, as Moses returns to the liminal banks of the river where he was found as a child. The baby who was "hidden" now exposes the loss of the generation of drowned children. The waters of Egypt become blood in a graphic literal image of the genocidal crime. The very stones and trees drip blood.
If the foremen of Israel had feared that Moses "had spoiled (hevashta) our smell with Pharaoh, to give him a sword to kill us," the very waters of Egypt now rot (va-yivash), as the moral rot rises to the surface]

[For full chapter, click here
Round one in the battle against Egypt. First, the chapter returns to the thematic linkage between sight, hearing, and knowledge, restoring the connection to knowledge broken by Pharaoh's "I do not know God": Though God did not initially make himself known by Name, " You will know that I am God".
Pharaoh's plan to crush Israel's resistance through the sheer burden of work is successful. Israel "do not listen" because of "short breath and hard work." Yet God promises to "take them out from under the burden of Egypt," removing the soul-crushing pressure that Pharaoh so consciously applied.
The most important theme is that of names. The chapter opens with God naming Himself repeatedly in a dizzying schizophrenic hall of mirrors: "I showed Myself known as El Shaddai, and with my Name I did not make Myself known to them..."The chapter closes by returning that that initial anonymous mass of the children of Israel, who had been reduced to animals, swarming across the land, this time calling them by name. Moses and Aaron must now be seen not as the children of "a man of Levi" who married "a daughter of Levi" but as the children of Amram, who married his aunt, Yocheved. They are redefined in this context: "These are the Aaron and Moses to whom God spoke" "these are those who spoke to Pharaoh." Redemption will begin again, now that the exhausted masses of Israel have been recalled and called by name]

[For full chapter, click here
Last chapter closed with the integration of faith, hearing, sight--an upsurge of hope. "They heard that God gad accounted (pakod)...and seen their affliction".
This chapter opens with the fall.The intimate personal name of God is undermined--"Who is God, that I should listen? I know not God, and I will not let Israel go." We are back to the original link between sight and sound and knowledge, only in the negative: no hearing and no knowledge.
God returns to being impersonal the "power (elohei) of the Hebrews".
Slavery is openly revealed as psychological warfare. It is not the results that are desired, but the crushing of the human spirit, the "pressure" (lahatz) that God had seen. "Nirpim atem, nirpim--you are idle, idle (lit. letting go, easing. The opposite of lahatz, to hold on, apply pressure). That is why you say 'let me go and sacrifice to God.'" Work is there to squeeze away any thoughts of the divine. Life is to be reduced to the daily grind of quota (yom be-yomo)]

To send forth
put words in someone's mouth
can you be another's mouth?

Complex identities
strange meetings

learning to listen

[For full chapter, click here
The chapter seamlessly continues the battle by the bush. Now Moses emerges not only as the one who "turns to see" but also as the one who fights. The same Moses who did not hesitate to smite the Egyptian and to reprimand the two Hebrews, now openly contradicts God: "they will not believe me, they will listen to me." The linkage between sight and sound that dominated the previous chapter, develops to a connection between faith and listening.
And the central leiword: sending forth. How does one act in another's stead? Moses is to act for God; Aaron is to act for Moses. A merging of identities, and for the first time in the Bible,the primal threat of "sending forth the hand" (shelihut yad) is used in a positive sense. There is a way to extend identity without grasping what is not meant for you.
Edenic themes abound: Sending forth the hand; the serpent, and the words shared between Aaron and Moses' mouths--an echo of the creation of Man, where God "breathes in" life, and Man begins to speak)

[for full chapter, click here
This chapter continues with the leitwords of seeing and being seen, and the thematic emphasis on naming.
Moses is first saved by being seen by his mother and Pharaoh's daughter. His first act as an adult is to go out "and see" his brothers' suffering. Here, at this definitive moment, an angel "shows himself" (va-yera) to Moses, and Moses "turns aside to see" (ve-ereh). When God "sees" that "he has turned aside to see (lirot)", he calls to Moses by name. The encounter by the burning bush is a mutual, intimate gaze, with all the danger that implies: "and Moses covered his face, for he was afraid to gaze." Moses can be defined as the one who turns aside to look, by that extra awareness and care.
As in the introductory paragraph, gaze turns to listening,and listening turns to knowledge, an intertwined related trio: "And God saw...and God knew" "and God heard...and God saw...and God knew" "I have seen...and have heard their screams...for I know..."
In the intimate mutual gaze, the quest for freedom turns into a need to give the redeeming God (who until now speaks as the impersonal power, elokim) a name. : "I will be with you" turns into "I will be what I will be," which becomes " I will be" and finally turns into the personal Name of God, placed within the context of history: "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." This local relationship turns into "this is my name forever, and my memory for every generation." God is the God if covenant, defined by the relationship to humanity.]

[For full chapter, click here
We continue the strange links to the blessings that closed Genesis. Joseph's blessing were defined by incredible fertility ("blessings of breasts and womb"); and the bringing together of the upper and lower waters that flooded the world in the Deluge. Now, out of that fearful fecundity comes a single child who is laid in an ark to traverse the deeps. He echoes Joseph in his "cries". The preternatural fecundity of the previous chapter now narrows to a specific marriage, pregnancy, and birth. The drowning dangers of the Nile waters now become a source of salvation.
The chapter opens with a mysterious, mythic no-name sequence is dominated by women: the nameless Hebrew mother who then nurses and raises the child; the "sister" (somehow older than the child that seemed to come immediately in the wake of the marriage); the "daughter of Pharaoh" with her bevy of maids. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence to save the child, whose cries tie the women together:" ve-hine naar bohe--and behold, a weeping boy"--echoing in the language used to define Joseph, the "naar" who consistently "weeps". The "daughter of Pharaoh" knows that the baby is "of the children of the Hebrews" and must suspect the identity of the Hebrew woman who offers herself as a nursemaid. Yet all she says is "take this child and nurse it, and I will give you your wages."
The child remains in an un-named liminal state, between two mothers, between water and earth, floating "on the banks" of the river.
Moses is defined as "growing" twice, two separate elements of maturity, each of which seem to define a different element of liminality. He first "grows" and is brought by his birth-mother to "Pharaoh's daughter". This bringing is the beginning of definition: he becomes the son of "Pharaoh's daughter"--rather than floating between two mothers--and is finally given a name (a re-introduction of names to the hitherto anonymous narrative).
The second "growing" defines him as being between two nationalities. He is "an Egyptian man," yet he goes to be with "his brothers," still seeing himself as a Hebrew.
Moses remains "in between," on the cusp of the thematic waters ("for I have drawn him from the waters"), not truly belonging anywhere)

[for full chapter, click here
Exodus continues directly from Genesis, the two books bridged by the re-iteration of the names of the sons of Israel. And then the fanality: "And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that entire generation."
The tolling of death sets the tone for a chapter that is marked by an almost preternatural fecundity on the one side, and the presence of death on the other: "the girls let live, but kill every boy."The chapter keeps developing the motifs of Jacob's final blessings in Genesis, but here they are turned to curses. The animal imagery turns into a hate of the children of Israel, who "swarm" (ve-yishretuzu) and are "like wild animals." The blessing of the "waters below" and fish-like fertility given to Joseph ("Let them be like fish in the bowels of the earth") here turns into death by casting into the river. The ability to birth the future (nolad, yalad) is directly attacked by the order to kill "on the birthing stool" (me-yaldot, be-yaldehem, ha-yeladim), an attampt to turn the teaming womb to death. The dark undertones of the closing of Genesis come out to the open)

Basked in the warmth of completing Genesis for a day. Want to do a siyyum summing up my thoughts about the book, but think that--in time honored tradition--I will push that off until a more auspicious day, when I have enough time to breath and articulate it properly.

In the meantime, i don't want to break the momentum, so onward to Exodus it is. The truth is, I can't think of a better way to go in to Pesach, and it is a fitting end to a day that included matzah baking...

For Exodus, I've chosen a small spiral notebook filled with brown newsprint. something in its simplicity feels right for a book that begins in slavery.

This time, I will be drawing in conte pencils. I liked the sketchy, erasable quality of pencil for Genesis, which is about a world in formation, not quite gelled into itself. For Exodus, I wanted something that continued with that primal feel, but had more permanence and complexity. I like the fact that the conte continues in monochrome, but that the addition of the white adds another level of density.
So onwards we go!

[For full chapter, click here
This closing of Genesis also
serves to introduce Exodus. A chapter full of closures, but also hints of
slavery and redemption. The oath fulfilled is followed by an oath left
unfulfilled, demanding answer.
Jacob is born in state back to
Canaan, to be gathered in a moment of homecoming. Yet Joseph promises Pharaoh:
"I will return." His hesitant request is a reminder of the fleeting
of power, and a dark intimation of things to come. Though Joseph was
"put" over Egypt by Pharaoh, in some ways he is still the passive
object of Pharaoh's will, bound to Egypt unless granted permission to leave.
And indeed, the verse specifies "The children and the animals remained
behind"—in a foreshadowing of the later Pharaoh's demand for hostages.
With Jacob’s death, the binding
holding the family together dissolves. “We will be your slaves,” the brothers
beg, in another intimation of the awaiting enslavement. Joseph’s response not
only closes this dark chapter in the family history, but also offers hope for
future failures to come. The brothers ask, “Please bear (sa na) the sins of
your brothers”—a prototype of Moses’ prayer in the aftermath of the Golden Calf
“Please bear (sa na) the sins of this people”. Joseph responds “Do I stand in
the place of God?” Failure is not irrevocable. In the end it can “be thought
for good, to give life to many people."
Transgression is not erased. As in the case of the Golden Calf, there
will be a process of accounting. Pakod yifkod, a precursor to God’s response to
Moses: Be-yom pokdi u-pakadeti. Joseph asks a promise of restitution: you send
me down here, now take me up. Undo what was done.
The book ends with this promise on hold: Joseph is put in a box,
in Egypt. A reverberating cliffhanger. Going “up” from Egypt will not only be a
national redemption, but also a spiritual one. Bringing Joseph up is a proof
that there is restitution, that sin can be undone.]